


Don't Look at Me, unless you want to.

by sxuichis



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: M/M, Orphan Kokichi, Orphanages, Other, Pre-Game Personalities (New Dangan Ronpa V3), Slow Burn, imma add more soon I promise, religious trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:14:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28684659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sxuichis/pseuds/sxuichis
Summary: When Kokichi Ouma is adopted by a man whos from a well known family and gets sent to this private school, he isn't entirely sure how to feel. When befriending someone who is known by others as not friendly and strange, but comes off to you as charming and kind. How is he supposed react?
Relationships: Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	Don't Look at Me, unless you want to.

_“Children in the system are most often very childish and mischievous, mostly due to the fact that they have never experienced a proper amount of love, care, and parental guidance. This can make it harder for teenagers to find a forever home. Older kids aren't really chosen by parents, and this can cause resentment of authority in those who experience these issues in their formative years. Of course, we do have some kids who fall through the cracks. Children that are taken from bad situations and brought here to rehome are oftentimes those kinds of kids.”_

The speakers in the Nave were barely muffled by the shitty drywall of the living quarters. Their words bore the same dulling energy, of course they didn't want to lose the more unloved kids. They had a “special” way of doing things as always, and Kokichi felt like it was pretty counterproductive to broadcast weaknesses of the orphaned/less fortunate children. It wouldn't do any good to put a big sign on them that said ‘This kid is broken! Take a look!’ It never felt right to him. Be that as it may, Kokichi felt different about this behavior, an ache in his bones to experience that feeling of love. His parents had both died tragically, and ever since then had always craved normalcy. He had been visited by multiple sets of parents, maybe around fifteen pairs and with each time he would break his frown for a fake smile. Properly polite to each and every group who came to visit him. But, to no avail, Kokichi Ouma had never been picked.

Until there was one day, a particularly sketchy set of parents had come in. He didn't quite understand them, usually by now he could get a good read on families like theirs. The people who stood before him were not the usual nuclear family type parent. Infact, he felt like he had seen these people here before. The woman was tall, lanky and looked like she was fairly healthy. She had a lit cigarette in her hand as she had come into the church building that Kokichi had been housed in for years, a scowl plastered on her face. She clearly didn't seem to be a force to be reckoned with. The man next to her was tall, burly and probably at least six feet tall with long greasy hair that was nearly reaching his shoulder blades. He was speaking with the sister, seemingly laying out a game plan on what kind of guidelines they would have to follow when it came to putting a child into alternative care. They weren't about to let _these_ people adopt him, right? They didn't even look like a couple, and if Kokichi was going to be adopted, or even fostered, he would hope that they would look more excited than these two did currently. If he had to be honest, the system really wasn't the best. Which was why it was probably so easy for these sketchy looking people to be accepted onto the waiting list. 

Kokichi gulped, looking at the pink haired woman. He definitely didn't feel like he would be safe with them. He decided that maybe he could talk to one of the sisters about the bad vibes that he had gotten from the family. Let them know that he didn't feel comfortable going with a pair that looked at him like he was meat more so than as a person. This really bad feeling in his gut couldn't have just been a coincidence or his lunch turning over. He knew that this was his intuition. Both clad in strange looking jackets with a look of bemusement on their faces. The woman seemed to be inspecting him, surveying Kokichi, sizing him up. He had been on such high alert meeting these strange people, that he had totally tuned out what the sister had been speaking about. He couldn't understand why they would want a seventeen year old that had washed up on the dark dreary beach that was the system over and over again, moved from home to home because his behavior wasn't the best. 

Unsurprisingly, they had denied his bad feelings, and shipped him off with the pair anyway. Though, the pink haired woman wasn't in sight, it was only the man who had come to pick him up. A week ago he had sat in his crappy little room, on a bunk bed that was slightly too small for him. Now Haiji was putting his suitcase into the backseat of a little silver car so that they could head to Towa City. He had heard of it before, a city with much to do and much to see. It was no surprise that this man had probably paid his way to getting Kokichi faster than most foster kids got their parents. He didn't want to question much, he just wanted to try and keep a positive perspective. Maybe these people could become his family, and he could really have someone to rely on, finally after all these years of waiting it was going to pay off for him. Which was really exciting of course, as he had been waiting oh so long for an opportunity like this to arise. Still, he felt a little off about the situation as a whole. He was ripped from his thoughts when the man spoke. 

“Hey Kid, I haven't been able to uh, formally introduce myself.” The man shut the door to the back seat, and held out his hand. “My name is Haiji Towa.” His slate blue eyes still looked mildly unimpressed, and a little intimidating to Kokichi. His voice sounded like grit on sandpaper, like he had been smoking for twenty years and never drank water. Kokichi honestly did not want to shake his hand, but didn’t want to seem impolite. So he held out his hand and shook Haijis with a fairly weak grip. 

“Kokichi Ouma. Thank you for taking me in, Towa-san.” He looked up at the other with a small nod. Adding a small smile for a fawning effect. He didn't want to make his first impression total garbage, and he definitely didn't want to raise any suspicions that he had been thinking ill of Haiji Towa. Especially since Haiji had been taking him in, he should at least act somewhat grateful. Even so, Kokichi had pulled his hand back and wiped it on his pants. 

“Yeah, it's whatever. My sister was a system kid, so.” Haiji scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. Reaching into his pocket, he handed Kokichi a cellphone, an old style Blackberry with the rollie ball in the mid center. 

“The sister told me that you didn't have a phone, and I don't want you out and about without a way to contact home...” He trailed off as Kokichi stared at the dinosaur in the man's hand. He had not owned his own cell phone before. Even if it was a really old model, he was still grateful. The gesture seemed innocent, but Kokichi was mildly skeptical. Taking the device from Haiji and putting it into his pocket for safe keeping. 

“Thank you sir.” He smiled, only to be cut off. 

“Please, call me Haiji.” He hummed, walking to the driver side and getting into the car.

Kokichi followed suit, climbing into the passenger seat and buckling his seatbelt, he waved back at the sister who sent him off as they drove away. It was definitely an awkward ride home, as they really did not talk very much at all. Haiji Towa laid down ground rules for the house and Kokichi listened. Nodding along and listening. He rested his elbow on the side of the window, staring out as he watched the small shitty town he once grew up in fade out into the city that he would now be residing in. Watching the buildings go from small mom and pops stores to big glass buildings with large windows and tall structures. After the restoration, there were of course some parts of it that were much better than others. Haiji had described that they were living in the outskirts of the restoration, and that it was better than where he was before but not too crazy of a change. 

“The restoration took years, and my family had spent a pretty long time working on it, of course after the incident…” Haiji paused. “The Towa family wasn't really left with a great amount of money, as the market had crashed before the Future Foundation was able to get everything under control. But eventually when things pulled themselves back together, we were able to recover some of the funds and it was all dumped into the restoration and I inherited my parents house. It's not much but it's probably better than where you were staying before.” Towa kept his eyes on the road, he clearly knew these roads like the back of his hand. One arm was bent and resting out the window, the other on the wheel. 

They pulled up to a house that honestly didn't look like any foster home he had been to. He was starting to feel more and more like the sisters in the orphanage had only sent him with these people because they were tired of seeing such a pathetic person around them. A kid who was incapable of being kept. They probably assumed that if he had stayed with these people, that he wouldn't come back. He would either end up dead or be used as a lackey in the home until he turned 18 and was kicked out onto the streets to be treated like a good for nothing sewer rat.Well, judging by the looks of his new living situation, they would probably be right. 

He was pulled from his thoughts once more as Towa had closed the driver side door. Getting out of the car and moving to the back to help carry his things inside. He didn't want to make Towa carry them, as he was already doing so much by helping Kokichi with a better place to live. Kokichi had his own experiences with masking, he was very good at hiding the fact that he actually felt miserable at best. The sisters in the orphanage would have been extremely worried about him if he had told them how he actually felt a lot of the time, and this experience had really come in handy when it came to being around people like Towa, whom which Kokichi could already tell probably didn't want much to do with emotions. 

The man, who had formerly introduced himself in the car as ‘Haiji Towa’ unlocked the janky door that held the musty house. The floors were dirty and the wallpaper was peeling. Not really a good look nor what he expected from a man who came from money, but he didn't want to complain. It wasn't awful, still a nice house. Definitely better than his childhood home. From what Kokichi could see, there was a hall that opened to another room that was some form of common room. A set of stairs that he could only assume led to the bedrooms, and a pair of dirty boots that Haiji had kicked aside as he pushed the door open only moments before. “Your room is upstairs and to the left, if you’d like to put your stuff down.” Towa had explained, dropping his keys on the side table and walking to the common room. “I have some work to do, make yourself at home or whatever.” He had waved a hand carelessly. Disappearing into the hallway and leaving Kokichi at the bottom of the stairs with his bags. He gripped the handle of his suitcase with a breath before heading up the stairs.

Dragging the bag up each step with a thud, Kokichi didn’t find _too_ much trouble. He didn't have very many belongings, mostly just clothes and objects he had grown attached to over the years. Including a little monokuma plushie that he had won from a claw machine one year, back when he had lived on the outskirts of a city not far from this one. Pushing the door to his new room open, he heaved a sigh. ‘Guess this is it.’ He had thought to himself, taking in the surroundings. The walls were a pale blue, paint chipped in some spots with a bed in the corner next to the window. The clouds seemed to be rolling in, from what he could see behind the sheer curtain. He pushed his wheeled suitcase over to the dresser, pulling out the drawers and pulling his few belongings out and setting them on the top of the chest. A small pocket knife he had five-finger discounted from a hardware store, his monokuma plush, and a notebook he had kept just to keep his thoughts and drawings in. 

He wondered if things would be different here, apparently he had already been enrolled into the school, Haiji had told him about where he would be going and what was expected of him when he had gotten there. Once again, Kokichi would be starting his ‘new’ life. On the bed that was made up for him, there was a school uniform laid out. It honestly looked to be a little too big but he was grateful nonetheless. He could make due for sure. A note was attached to the top that had said, “Good luck.-HT” Felt a little menacing, but it was a nice gesture. It was then that Kokichi caught himself pacing, thoughts racing as he thought about the potential of making new friends (or enemies) at his new school. Leaving his old one wasn't too awful, as he didn't have any friends to begin with. Plopping himself down onto the sheets that smelt like they had sat in a linen closet for ages, he laid back and stared up at the ceiling. Hours had come and gone before it had been nightfall. Another day another spiral, and there he sat letting himself be drowned in his own thoughts. Like cold sobering waves that washed up over and over again. Each hitting him with another sense of reality that something in this life had gone wrong. Again. Was it that maybe, he had done something wrong?  
  
That couldn’t be the case, as he had already been to the confessional before. He spoke of each pettily small bad thing that he had done. All of the things that had weighed heavy on his mind were spoken with the priest there. And even though most of them weren’t really considered sins, he still bore a heavy heart. 

Tears dripping down his face with another sad huff as he clutched the monokuma plushie to his chest, he frowned and nuzzled his nose into its fur. He felt pathetic, shouldn't he be celebrating? He was just put into another home to be potentially accepted as a family member, and instead of doing so, he was hiding in his room moping. If anything he should have been attempting to create a bond with the people who had taken him in. Now that he thought about it, he wondered why he hadn't seen the lady around. In the car he had thought that maybe she had been at home, preparing for him to show up. But when they got here they were not welcomed by her. 

Maybe she was also in the living room with Towa. He would check but, he wanted to stay here, become acquainted with what would be his new surroundings for the time being until they kicked him to the curb like every other family had done to him in the past. It wouldn’t be long until then he was sure.

Rain fell down on the concrete, glimmering in the dull light that illuminated off the sidewalk. Little sparkles at the edges of each dark pool of dirty water that littered the concrete of Kokichi Ouma's new shitty little neighborhood. There lies the depressed, sleepless boy. On his side, his eyes flickered up and down the street looking for some force of life to fixate on if only for a moment. A distraction was needed, and Kokichi settled for watching the rain fall through his window. It had been another particularly dreary evening. He had grown used to the crushing loneliness. His parents didn't want anything to do with him, which was totally fine by him. They had never really been good at parenting anyway. They had basically had him fending for himself for as long as he could remember until they died. With multiple physical altercations that had never gone well and needless to say there _were_ plenty of nights that he had sleep for dinner and a lot of the time his only meal would be the sloppy school lunch provided to him by the public school that he went to. He had particularly good grades, at one point with dreams of possibly becoming a great leader, of...well he wasn't really quite sure yet to be honest. Maybe the leader of a rebellion, or just being able to bring justice down on those who chose to belittle him in the way that they always did.

Past bullies had managed to make his self-esteem plummet and now as he was heading into his last year of schooling, he knew that he would have to try to branch out, so he didn't absolutely flop when he was tossed out into the big sea of the adult world. 

Outstretched pale fingers reached the glass of the crusted white window, there was a crack that ran through the middle of the pane and condensation fogged up the window that gave him the view of the very wet outdoors. Kokichi swiped the wet patch that blocked his view, wiping it on his blanket. He knew he needed sleep, but he couldn't shake this feeling of despair. Weighing heavy on his shoulders and dragging him down more and more every day was the thought of not being able to escape his own personal hell. His mind wandered to the killing game. Lifting the little monokuma from his chest and into the air with a soft huff. He knew they were having auditions and honestly, he didn't really have much to live for. They could wipe his memory and make him memorable. Social and potential suicide. An ideation that he wasn’t sure he could really follow through with. He didn't have anything particularly redeemable about himself to even audition with. He couldn't even _suggest_ a talent. Of course, he could dream. But that wouldn't get him very far.  
  
  
Turning over onto his other side, the squeaky bed creaking under his weight. Fishing out the phone Haiji had handed him, he opened the screen to check the time. It was only four thirty on a Sunday night, and here he was dreading the next day that he would have to deal with the typical mistreatment given to him by shitty upperclassmen that rendered him as weak and feeble. It had been ingrained into him by the surrounding people that he was inferior to them by some defining factor that he would never understand. He pulled the blankets over hi s eyes. Deciding to take a light nap before actually deciding to head downstairs to talk to Towa and potentially get a tour of the house. Kokichi must have been really tuckered out though, because he didn't wake up until about eleven thirty. He awoke with a start. Shooting up when he realized how dark it had gotten outside of his window. Anyone in the house was probably asleep by now. He really hoped that he didn't come off as rude because of his accidental coma. Frowning, he laid back down. Reaching up to grab a pillow from the top of the bed and squeezing it tightly. What a mess. He really hoped that they wouldn't grow angry with him over this. Whatever was going to happen he would find out tomorrow for sure. Slowly but surely he drifted back into light sleep. Listening to the sound of rain outside of the window pane. 


End file.
